A $10 billion lawsuit is now heading toward trial, and at its center is a single edited clip.
President Donald Trump is suing the BBC over a documentary that aired before the 2024 election. He claims the broadcaster “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring” his January 6, 2021, speech.
The case has now been scheduled for trial in February 2027, according to court documents filed in Florida. The dispute focuses on a Panorama episode titled Trump: A Second Chance?, which aired on 28 October 2024.
In his original speech on 6 January 2021, Trump told supporters: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”
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More than 50 minutes later in the same speech, he said: “And we fight. We fight like hell.”
In the Panorama program, those remarks were edited together into one sequence: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”
That edit later became the core of the legal battle.
Criticism grew after a leaked internal memo was published by The Telegraph. The fallout was serious. BBC Director-General Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness resigned. BBC chairman Samir Shah apologised and described the edit as an “error of judgement.” The broadcaster also confirmed the program would not be re-broadcast in that form.
However, the BBC rejected Trump’s demand for compensation.
In December, his legal team filed the lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida. The filing seeks $5 billion for each of two counts: defamation and violation of a Florida trade practices law.
The lawsuit alleges the BBC defamed Trump “intentionally, with actual malice.” It also claims the edit was a “brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the [2024] election’s outcome to President Trump’s detriment”.
Now the BBC is pushing back.
In a filing in Miami, its lawyers wrote they will “raise various arguments regarding the court’s lack of general and specific personal jurisdiction over them under Florida law… as well as arguments regarding [Trump’s] failure to state a claim for defamation or for violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.”
In simple terms, the BBC argues two things.
First, that Florida courts may not have legal authority over a British broadcaster. Second, that Trump has not properly established a claim for defamation or deceptive trade practices.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
